Aftershock
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: 'Ceasefire' is a loaded term. Carolina deals with the immediate aftermath of the battle at the jamming station. Spoilers for 12x18.


Tucker falls.

It happens fast, a boneless collapse. Carolina's still aiming down the sights of her prototype weapon. Her HUD confirms what she already knows: hostiles out of range. "We're clear," she says, voice hoarse.

Simmons stumbles behind her, his breathing loud in her ears, and she hears him mutter, distantly, "I think I broke something in the explosion."

Dr. Grey is sprinting out to Tucker's body, sprawled unmoving in the dirt. Carolina is still working on relaxing her finger from the trigger, working on convincing her amped-up brain and body that it's over. It's _over_.

"Yeah, Simmons," Grif says, behind her. His voice cracks. "You broke your fucking head. Sit down before you faint or something."

Carolina glances over her shoulder, watches Sarge and Grif and Donut pull Simmons down to the ground, where he brings his knees up to his chest with a groan. He's breathing so loudly. She moves away so she can hear herself think. Her heartbeat is thrumming in her cracked ribs, in the dull ache of her incipient concussion.

Dr. Grey says, softly, "That's a lot of blood."

"Is he gonna be okay?" Caboose asks. Nobody answers him.

Grey starts pulling off Tucker's armor, and Carolina's stomach turns at the familiar sight of blood pooling between the kevlar bodysuit and the power armor.

"I have to," Carolina says, and swallows. "I have to find Wash."

Nobody stops her. She starts walking.

She knows what she'll find. She's known since Locus intervened. Wash's armor is a blip on her HUD, unmoving, and she steels herself, runs down the now-familiar list of names, reconciles the idea of "last".

She stumbles when Epsilon's voice crackles over the radio, impossibly loud, crowing, "That was fucking _awesome_, you guys! Did you see that? We just, uh. We just. Tucker?" A pause. His voice splits, doubles. "Oh, _no_."

Carolina rounds a corner. Her visor picks out the contours of Wash's armor in the grass; he's sprawled face-down. He's—

Her HUD is displaying his vitals.

She stops, stunned, moves forward again when he gives a low groan and rolls onto his side, coughing. She stumbles to her knees next to him, rests a hand on his shoulder, says, "_Jesus_, Wash," in a voice that comes out a bit too harsh, and then, softer, "I thought you were dead."

"Common mistake," Wash says, trying to push himself up, then sinking back down with a yelp. "One of these days someone's gonna be right about that."

She exhales, slowly, fighting down a grin. "But not today."

"Eh," Wash says. "It's still early."

Carolina has shifted her grasp from his shoulder to his midsection, pressing against the lighter underarmor, brow furrowed. "Where are you hit?"

He squirms, then flinches when she presses against something tender. "He didn't shoot me. He fucking _tackled_ me and beat the shit out of me. What the fuck is with that guy?"

She finishes her examination—a few broken ribs, probably some internal damage—and loops one of his arms over her shoulder, dragging him to his feet. He gasps and clings to her, breathing hard. "You're okay," she says. "We're gonna wait here a sec, then we're gonna get back to the others." Her own battered ribs are creaking at the extra weight. "You think maybe we overdid it a bit? The pretending-to-lose-so-Felix-would-start-gloating thing."

"We're just really dedicated actors." Wash snorts. "I mean, Locus just wouldn't stop _monologuing_. He had this whole thing about what it meant to be a true soldier—"

"He totally sucked you in."

Wash turns his head to look at her slowly, with an effort. "What?"

"Yep. You were totally monologuing right back at him. I can tell."

"I don't monologue!"

Carolina pretends to consider this statement. "You brood."

He snorts, shifts against her. "Learned from the best." He's quiet for a moment, catching his breath, then says, "We won, right? I mean, I'm guessing we won because I'm not dead and you're not dead. Two Freelancers in, two Freelancers out. Better than our usual numbers."

"Yeah," Carolina says. "I think we won."

Wash laughs. It's not the strained sound Carolina expects, not the nervous snicker she remembers. It's pure relief. She stares at the ground until he notices her reluctance. He stops laughing. He says, "They're all okay, right?"

She must not answer quickly enough, because he says, "_Carolina_," and in his tone of voice she hears the echo of a pistol cocking at the side of her head.

"Felix managed to knife Tucker. He kept his helmet cam active long enough to transmit the message, but..."

Wash stiffens, his arm around her shoulders pulling tighter, then releasing the pressure. "Let's go," he says.

Epsilon catches her eye first, hovering over Tucker and Grey, his glow faded and muted. She thinks she sees purple in among the blue. Carolina hesitates, then feels Wash shift against her. Her voice comes out strong and confident. "Dr. Grey. How's he doing?"

Grey looks up. The white of her armor is streaked with disconcerting smears of blood. "Oh," she says, with easy cheerfulness, "he'll be fine! He's already got some kickass scars down there, he won't even notice the extra."

At her side, Wash stumbles, nearly pulling her down with him. "You people are going to give me a heart attack," he says, but there's a grin in his voice.

"Tucker's going to be fine!" Caboose announces, then pauses. "Aw. Wait. Tucker's going to be fine."

"We're fine too, thanks for asking!" Grif calls, from the Reds' little huddle.

"Triage!" Grey hollers back. "You want priority, get stabbed next time!"

"Uh," says Sarge. "I hereby and forthwith declare Grif's complaint withdrawn. Forthwith. And such."

"Cool," says Grey. "Let me know if you change your mind. I've got a really sharp scalpel!"

Carolina is swaying on her feet, braced for a blow that isn't coming. Part of it's the concussion, but part of it's... she runs through a different list of names in her mind. The living. Runs through it twice, to be sure.

Wash pulls away from her to crouch down beside Tucker, resting a hand against his forehead. Without his helmet, Tucker just looks young, his jaw slack in unconsciousness, his dreads a mess of flattened helmet-hair. Wash exhales. "Asshole," he says, fondly.

"Tell me about it," Epsilon says.

Carolina turns away, feeling like she's intruding. Takes a few steps.

The radio flashes on, sputtering, the signal strengthening. "—I repeat, this is Vanessa Kimball of the New Republic Army. A ceasefire has been declared. Captain Tucker, do you read? Captain Grif? What are your coordinates?"

Carolina glances back to the others, then presses fingers to the side of her head. "Kimball," she says, then pauses. "Vanessa. I'm Agent Carolina, formerly of Project Freelancer. I'm here with the Reds and Blues. Transmitting coordinates."

A pause, and then, warily, "Let me speak to Captain Tucker."

"Captain Tucker's been seriously injured. It was Felix." Carolina waits, but if Kimball reacts, it's not audible over the radio. "Felix and Locus have escaped, but we're all right here. We have a Federal Army doctor patching up Tucker."

"Well, that's just fucking swell," Kimball says. "A Fed doctor. Great. Let me speak with Grif, then. Or Simmons. Or, hell, I'll take Caboose. Unless they're all conveniently out of commission as well?"

Carolina turns. "Grif! Get on the radio!"

He's staring at her like she's grown a second head. "Me?"

"Yes, you!"

His voice flickers into the conversation. "Uh. Hi?"

Kimball's wariness melts immediately into startled warmth; Carolina wonders if she's going over a similar list of survivors in her head. "Captain Grif! It's a relief to hear your voice, let me tell you."

Grif seems startled, like he's never heard that particular string of words in close proximity before. "Oh yeah, right! With the back-from-the-dead stuff." He pauses. "So, uh. I guess our idiot lieutenants probably got themselves killed in the crossfire..."

"Bitters is fine, Grif. Your squads all made it through. Matthews was asking after you."

"Oh god. _He_ can keep thinking I'm dead."

"You inspired him, Grif," Kimball says, and Carolina is momentarily glad for her expression-concealing helmet. "Maybe you'll have to own up to that someday."

"Yeah, I guess," says Grif, instead of something smart-mouthed, and Carolina wonders if Kimball appreciates how much respect that implies, coming from him. "So what's up?"

"This Agent Carolina," Kimball says, some of the humor fading from her voice. "Does she have your best interests at heart?"

"You're asking _me _for a judgment call," Grif says, deadpan. "This is the most fucked-up planet."

"_Grif_," Kimball says.

"Yeah, yeah, Carolina's fine," Grif says. "She was an asshole a while ago, but it was just that thing Freelancers do where they're all broody and obsessed with revenge and shit. She put together a lot of the plan today and hey, worked pretty well, didn't it?"

"Pretty well," Kimball says stiffly. "Okay. Thanks for the report, Captain."

"Uh," says Grif, and Carolina watches him shoot an incredibly obvious sidelong glance at her. "Just in case she does go evil or something, can I absolve myself of all responsibility?"

"Heretofore and forthwith!" Sarge bellows over the line.

"I... yes, that seems fair. Thank you, Captain." Kimball waits until the others have signed off, then says, "Well, Agent Carolina, I suppose this means you've got my attention."

Carolina sighs, leaning against a support strut to take the weight off her aching leg. "Actually, you have mine. What does it look like at the Capital?"

Kimball laughs. There's no humor in it. "A lot of bodies, Agent. Piles and piles of bodies and nobody in the immediate vicinity to blame."

Carolina tips her head back, resting it against the metal behind her, staring up at the sky. "I hoped we weren't too late."

"You saved a lot of lives," Kimball says. "But a lot of people died before that could happen. On both sides."

"Yeah," says Carolina. "Can I give you a piece of advice? One betrayed leader to another."

Kimball's quiet for a long moment. Then she says, "Shoot."

"You're going to want to blame yourself for what happened with Felix. Don't. He's a professional. You couldn't have seen it coming. Just..." Carolina feels her own confidence faltering along with her voice; her words seem trite, cliché. She wonders when she lost the ability to command loyalty. She wonders if she ever really had it. "Just try not to push away the people who need you most. Okay?"

"I don't blame myself," Kimball says. Her voice pitches louder, like she's leaning into a microphone. "I blame Felix. I blame whoever the hell he's working for. Do you know what I'm afraid of, Agent Carolina? I'm afraid of the intangibles. I'm afraid of these soldiers forgetting that voice on the radio, forgetting that face. I'm afraid of them remembering the Feds who murdered their friends, instead, the ones who actually pulled the trigger. I'm afraid of where the blame's going to be placed. I'm afraid of this... this _farce_ turning into a real civil war after all."

Carolina closes her eyes, listening to Kimball's harsh breathing over the line, then says, "The people of Chorus need someone like you."

Kimball snorts. "Yeah, well. Lots of vacancies in the military these days. I'm sure I'll find something to do." She pauses. "Hey, you need a job? What do retired ex-Freelancers do these days, anyway?"

"Some of us try to hunt down the bastards who did this." Carolina looks over to where Wash and Caboose and Epsilon are huddled with Grey around Tucker, to where Grif and Simmons are arguing and Sarge is bellowing and Donut is trying to convince Lopez that he should maybe see a chiropractor after the whole beheading thing. She takes a deep breath. When she exhales, a weight comes off her shoulders. "And some of us stick around to see things through. If that's a serious offer, Vanessa, I'll consider it."

"It is now," Kimball says. "Nobody left has got any particular leadership ability. We could use the help. Not that we don't appreciate someone going after those fuckers, but, well. Revenge won't save Chorus."

Carolina laughs. "Trust me," she says. "I know how that works. We'll talk more later, okay? I want to make sure these jackasses are all on the road to recovery."

"Sounds good," Kimball says. "Well, not good, but. Okay."

"'Okay' works for me," Carolina says. "Agent Carolina out."

She stays leaning against the pillar for some time, watching the others sink into the relief of a post-battle high, listening to the stories get more and more and more elaborate. She should go to them, explain that she's staying, that she's found something worth sticking around for. She should see them off. She should say goodbye.

Instead, she looks up at the sky, picks out the two moons near the horizon. Listens to the wind in the tall grass.

There are, she thinks, worse places to make a home.


End file.
